There is an ice cream shop right near our house.  I don’t really like going there because every time I do, it seems like they never have anything non-dairy, but thanks to my poor review on yelp, they’ve stepped it up.  Emma and I stopped in on Monday and they didn’t have anything non-dairy then, but I was told to come back on Wednesday for their first-ever soy-based ice cream.

Today is Wednesday.  We went back.  And it was really, really good.  It was frozen so solidly that a smooth scoop wasn’t really possible, but I give them an A+ for the effort.  The taste was good, although it was a little too chippy for me (but that’s hardly anything to complain about).

Milkshake Werks is located at 256 Redwood Shores Parkway in the Nob Hill shopping center.

We also had a taste of a locally-made Root Beer from Devil’s Canyon Brewery.  It was awesome (organic, no refined sugars), but after checking their website, I see that is sweetened with honey.  While I do try to avoid it whenever possible, I won’t be too hard on myself if I happen to have it once in a while.  Anyway, now that I know it has honey, I’ll probably won’t have this Root Beer again.  Honey is food that bees make for themselves, not for us.

This time, I remembered my camera!

I’ve blogged about Amici’s before… they’re one of the only pizzerias on the face of the Earth that offers a vegan cheese, and it’s actually really tasty.  You can sub it on any pizza at no additional charge.  Today, Emma and I went out to lunch because it was nearly 2 and I hadn’t fed her lunch yet.  One of those days.  I had the veggie pizza with soy cheese, which came with tomato sauce, caramlized onions, roasted green peppers, sauteed mushrooms and black olives.  With locations around the Bay Area (and free delivery), I bet you can find one near you!

After dinner last night, we decided to go get some ice cream.  We don’t do this very often, but I was excited to check out Cowabunga Creamery in San Carlos because I’d heard and read that they offer some vegan flavors.  Imagine my surprise when, in their relatively small case of ice cream, they offered two non-dairy options!  The first was a Mint Cookie Swirl made from soy milk, the second an Irish Coffee made from coconut milk.  You may recall that coffee ice cream is my absolute favorite so, naturally, I went for the Irish Coffee.

The ice cream itself wasn’t super creamy or fatty, as other coconut milk based ice creams I’ve had tend to be.  In fact, I was hardly able to taste the coconut flavor.  It was smooth and icy, almost like a sorbet.  It had chunks of oreo-esque cookies in it and was so incredibly delicious.

Pricing was fairly reasonable.  $2.00 for a mini scoop (pictured), but all non-dairy flavors add an extra $1 to their listed prices.  Ice cream is also available by the quart– $6 for dairy flavors, $10 for non-dairy.  It’s not something I would spend money on everyday, but, for an occassional treat, it’s worth it.  I mean, how great is it that a vegan can visit an ice cream shop and have two gourmet flavors to choose from?

Cowabunga Creamery is located in downtown San Carlos, CA at 784 Laurel Street.  You can also host parties here!

After an exciting family meal last night, I have to give Amici’s a big blog hug.  Amici’s is a chain pizzeria/Italian restaurant here in the Bay Area and we happen to have on right down the street from us.  They’ve always offered a soy cheese, which melted so well and tasted so normal that I just guessed it to be non-vegan.  I have ordered it on occasion, even though I had my doubts about it being vegan.  I was so surprised and elated last night when I opened my menu and saw a little sticker in there proclaiming proudly that “our soy cheese is now vegan” that I nearly peed my pants.  What??? Seriously???!

So I ordered it.  And it was FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!  Like way better than any vegan cheese’d pizza I’ve ever had.  I asked our server what brand they use and it turns out that they use Cheezly brand vegan mozzarella.  I’ve never seen Cheezly in any store near me, but I have seen it online at Vegan Essentials.  You can bet money that I will be ordering some the next time I order my vitamins.  I made a point to tell our server how good it was and how much I liked that they had a vegan cheese.  Hopefully the positive feedback will make Cheezly a permanent addition.

Sorry for the lack of photos, but I didn’t have my camera and this was too exciting to not blog about.  I mean, how many pizza places can you think of that actually care enough to offer a vegan cheese?  This is huge!

Earth Day is almost here, which means you only have a few days left to enter this months’ giveaway.

I wish I could take credit for this incredibly creative twist on PB&J, but I cannot.  It’s crunchy peanut butter, slices of granny smith apple, chunks of banana and cranberry sauce.  AND IT’S SOOOOO GOOD!  There’s a little cafe, Specialty’s, in the office park near my hubby’s work.  He goes there occasionally for lunch and today, we all went.  He and I had a veggie sandwich and a cup of soup.  The vegetarian soup today was a roasted red pepper soup with lentils in it.  It was delicious (even Emma ate a bunch of it)!  In the past, they have had minestrone as the vegetarian option and that is also good.  For Emma, we ordered this Peanut Butter & Stuff sandwich and a cup of fresh fruit.  She enjoyed it, but probably not as much as I did.

I’m very impressed by their selection of vegetarian (and easily veganizable) options.  Most sandwich shops you go to have a lame vegetarian sandwich on their menus, which is pretty much just the produce that they normally put on their meat sandwiches.  These vegetarian sandwiches have pizzazz, if you know what I mean.  Prices are pretty reasonable too.

Specialty’s has locations all around the Bay Area (CA), as well as the Seattle and Chicago areas.

We did a bit of traveling this weekend and on our way home, stopped for dinner at our favorite vegan restaurant in San Francisco, Herbivore.  It’s never disappointing to eat there.

Matt had the burrito and I opted for the lentil loaf topped with the red beet sauce.  It was served with mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy and a side of satueed greens (my best guess is chard, but I’m not entirely sure).  Everything was very good!

To drink, I had the “green juice,” which I have to admit sounded super duper scary.  Celery, apple, spinach, parsley, mint, ginger and lime– all mixed in one cup.  Doesn’t it sound a little scary?  Well, I’ll tell you that it’s actually quite good.  So good, in fact, that I wouldn’t mind making it at home, if I had a juicer like this Omega Juicer that can juice leafy greens.  I’m afraid my current one wouldn’t be able to handle the spinach.